The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-05-12


tions. We must get off the stage that others
may come on, and for tlis reason there is
long procession reaching down all the time
into the valley of shadows.
This emigration from time into eternity is
SO vast an enterprise that we cannot under
stand it. Every hour we hear the clang of
the sepulchral gate. The sod must be broken
The ground must be plowed for resurrection
harvest. Eternity must be peopled. The
dust must press our eyelids. 1T is ap-
pointed unto all men once to die" This
emigration from time into eternity keeps
three-fourths of the families of the earth in
desolation. The air is rent with farewels
and the black tasseled vehicles of death rum
BILE through every street.
The body of the child that was folded so
closely to the mothers heart is put away in
the cold and the darkness. The laughter
freezes to the girls lip and the rose scatters.
The boy in the harvest field of Shunam says:
''My headl my headr' and they carry him
home to die ON the lap of his mother. Widow
hood stands with tragedieSof woe struck into
the pallor of the cheek. Orphanage cries in
vain for father and mother. Oh, the grave is
cruel! With teeth of stone, it clutches for its
prey. Between the closing gates of the
sepulcher our hearts are mangled and
cTuSueu. Is Uuefe any sOldCt.
None. We come to the obsequies, we
sit with the grief stricken, we talk patheti-
cally to their soul; but soon the obsequies
have passed, the carriages have left us at the
door, the friends who stayed for a few days
have gone, and the heart sits in desolation
listening for the little feet that will never again
patter through the hall, or looking for the
entrance of those who will never come again
-sighing into the darkness-ever and anon
coming across some book or garment, or little
shoe or picture, that arouses former associ-
ation almost killing the heart
Long days and nights of suffering that wear
out the spirit and expunge the bright lines Of
life, and give haggardness to the face, and
draw the flesh tight down over the cheek bone,
and draw dark lines under the sunken eyes,
and the hand is tremulous, and the voice is
husky and uncertain, and the grief is wear
ing, grinding accumulating, exhausting.
Now, what are such to do? Are the merely
to look up into a brazen and IMPLYING
heaven? Are they to walk blasted heath
unfed Of stream, unsheltered by overarching
tree? Has God turned us out on the barren
common to die? Oh, mol no! no! He has not.
He comes with sympathy and kindness and
love- He understands all our grief He sees
the height end the depth and the length and
the breadth of it. He is the only one that
can fully sympathize. Go and tell Jesus.
Sometimes when we have trouble we go to
our friends and we explain it, and they try
to sympathize; but they do not understand it.
They cannot understand it. But Christ sees
all over it, and all through it. He not only
counts the tears and records the groans, but
before the tears started, before the groans
began, Christ saw the inmost hiding place of
your sorrow; and he takes it, and he
weighs it, and he measures it, and
he pities it with an all absorbing pity. Bone
of our bone Flesh of our flesh. Heart of
onr heart Sorrow of our sorrow
As long as he remembers Lazarus grave he
will stand by you in the cemetery. As long
as he remembers his own heartbreak he will
stand by you in the laceration of your affec-
tions. When he forgets the footsore way,
the sieepless nights, the weary body, the ez-
| hausted mind, the awful cross, the solemn
| grave, then he will forget you, but not until
| then.
Often when we were in trouble we sent for
our friends; but they were far away, they
could not get to us. We wrote to them:
'Come right away" or telegraphed: "Take
! the next train" They came at last, yet were
great while in coming, or perhaps were too
| late But Christ is always near-before you,
| behind you, within you. No mother ever
| threw her arms around her child with such
warmth and ecstasy of affection as Christ has
shown toward you. Close at hand-nearer
than the staff upon which you lean, nearer
than the cup which you put to your lips.
nearer than the handkerchief with which you
wipe away your tears-I preach him an ever
present. all sympathizing, compassionate
| Jesus. How can you stay away one moment
from him with your griefs? Go now. Goand
! tell Jesus.
1t is often that our friends have no power
to relieve us. They would very much like to
do it; but they cannot disentangle our
finances, they cannot cure our sickness and
raise our dead but glory be to God that he
to whom the disciples went has all power in
heaven and ON earth, and at our call he will
balk our calamities, and, at just the right
time, in the presence of an applauding earth
and a resounding heaven, will raise our dead.
He will do it. He Is mightier than Herod.
| He is swifter than the storm. He is grander
than the sea. He is vaster than eternity. And
| every sword of Gods omnipotence will leap
from its scabbard, and all the resources of in
fiDity be exhausted, rather than that Gods
child shall not be delivered when he cries to
him for rescue.
Suppose your child was in trouble, how
much would you endure to get him out? You
would go through any hardship. You would
say; 81 don't care what it will cost l must
get him out of that trouble"
Do you think God is not SO good a father
as you? Seeing you are in trouble, and hav-
ing all power, will he not stretch out his arm
and deliver you? He will. He is mighty to
save. He can level the mountain and divide
the sea, and can extinguish the fire and save
the soul Not dim of eye, not weak of arm,
not feeble of resources, but with all eternity
and the universe at his feet. Go and tell
Jesus Will you? Ye whose cheeks are wet
with the night dew of the grave; ye who
cannot look up; ye whose hearts are dried
with the breath of sirocco: in the name of
the religion of Jesus Christ, which lifts every
burden and wipes away every tear and de-
| livers every captive and lightens every dark.
ness implore you now go and tell Jesus.
A little child went with her father, sea
captain, to sea- and when the first storm
came the little child was very much fright
ened, and in the night rushed out of the cabin
and said: "Where is father? where is fathers?
Then they told her: "Rather is on deck guild
ing the vessel and watching the storm" The
little child Immediately returned to her berth
and said: "It's all right, for fathers or
deck" Oh, ye who are tossed and driven in
this world, up by the mountains and down by
the valleys, and at your wits end, want you
to know the Lord God is guiding the ship
Your Father is on deck. He will bring you
through the darkness into the harbor. Trus
in the Lord. Go and tell Jesus. Let me say
THAT if you do not you will have no comfort
here and you will forever be an outcast anG
wanderer. Your death will be a sorrow
Your eternity will be disaster.
But if you go to him for pardon and sym
pathy, all is we'll Everything will brighter
up, and joy will come to the heart and sorrow
will depart; your sins will be forgiven anC
your foot will touch the upward path anC
the shining messengers that report abov,
what is done here will tell it until the great
arches of God resound with the glad tidings
if now, with contrition and full trustfulneS
of soul, you will only go and tell Jesus.
But am oppressed, when l look over
audieI ce, 1T the prospect that some may
. 9 2 3 as